Luxembourg FM rejects Blair as EU president

(BERLIN) - Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn came out publicly against former British leader Tony Blair as future European Union president, in an interview published Thursday.

After Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands this week wrote a joint letter sketching out their ideal future head of the European Council that seemed to discount Blair for the job, Asselborn was more pointed in his latest remarks.

"Tony Blair does not have the necessary profile on European Union issues or on the major questions of world politics," Asselborn told the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

"He has more often divided than united," he said, in a veiled reference to Blair's strong support of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Asselborn said the big countries of the 27-nation EU often claimed the more important jobs in Brussels for themselves.

"What we want to do is put someone in the top position who knows how to defend the interests of European Union," he said.

"The tendency (of the larger EU countries) to want to call the shots in the EU because they undoubtedly carry the bigger responsibility violates the principle of solidarity and equal rights."

The EU president job will not come into force before the Lisbon Treaty, an overhaul of the workings of the bloc, is ratified in all 27 member states.

After last week's Irish "yes" in a referendum, the Czech Republic and Poland are still to complete the process.

Nevertheless Blair has emerged as the early favourite for the key post, with support not only from the British government but also from France.

But his path is hampered by his own country's ambivalence to European integration.

Seen as having one foot in Europe and the other out, Britain is neither a member of the single currency eurozone nor the passport-free Schengen area.